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In this industrial age of plastics derived from petrochemicals found in oil, we have created a toxic environment, both external and internal, which none of us can escape, not even our pets. The toxin is a hormone-mimicking chemical known as “xenoestrogen” which is essentially a synthetic form of estrogen.

Now, estrogen is an essential hormone in the reproduction process. It fosters growth and cell-replication. Its counterpart, progesterone, slows down and even stops the replication of cells. Too much estrogen, however, without an appropriate balance of progesterone to check cell-replication, can cause unbridled replication of cells. This unbridled replication of cells creates tumors and has come to be called “Cancer” in our time. The following article speaks clearly to this modern-day epidemic brought on by our ignorance of xenohormones and the harm they have brought upon our heads. It is taken from the website of “Forbidden Knowledge TV” to which I subscribe. Read and learn.

Cancer will afflict 1 in 2 men and 1 in 3 women in the US and 1 out of every 2 of those diagnosed will die from cancer. These numbers are set to nearly double by the year 2050, based on statistics collected by the National Cancer Institute (NCI).

It’s no exaggeration to call these numbers epidemic, on par with the 14th century bubonic plague (aka “Black Death”), which killed over 30% of Europe’s population.

My family has been ravaged by cancer. I’ll bet yours has, too. Are we supposed to believe that this hyper-acceleration of cancer rates is genetic?

With all of Monsanto’s biochemical wizardry, one would think that they could find another way to create pesticides besides dumping estrogen-mimicking carcinogens onto the world’s food supply.

In this video, Dr. Terry Grossman and Dr. Nick Delgado, discuss the relationship between cancer and these unnatural estrogens in our environment.

Decades of peer-reviewed research that has shown that harmful estrogen-mimicking chemicals are invading our bodies through pesticides, plastics (PCBs) and petrochemicals, among other vectors. Exposure to these “xenoestrogens” has been linked not just to cancers of reproductive organs but also of the breast, lung, kidney, pancreas, and brain.

Additionally, new research shows that all meats, even from animals raised without added hormones, free-range, organic, etc. are naturally very hormonal, such that today, most of us have accumulated up to 10,000 times as much estrogen in our bodies as our ancestors ever did.

The less severe consequences of exposure to these estrogen-mimicking envirotoxins (i.e., the preludes to cancer) can manifest as symptoms relating to both high and low estrogen, either of which can cause a range of problems for men and women.

A build-up of xenoestrogens can lead to gynecomastia in men (“man boobs”), as well as excessive accumulation of DHT (Dihydrotestosterone), a etabolite of testosterone, which binds to receptors in hair follicles and is the primary factor in male pattern baldness (which similarly affects some women). A little-known factoid is that men in their 60s and older often have higher estrogen levels than women of the same age group.

Exposure to these estrogen-mimicking envirotoxins can manifest as symptoms relating to both high and low estrogen. In women, excessive estrogen can lead to weight gain, migraines, depression, insomnia and a slew of other symptoms of hormone imbalance. Low estrogen in women can result in elevated blood pressure, heart disease and lack of libido, along with many other problems.

What can we do about this?

Dr. Grossman and Dr. Delgado agree that detoxification through sweat and our other excretions is important – as is the avoidance of ingesting of these chemicals in the first place. This implies limiting or entirely cutting out our consumption of water in plastic bottles, meats, and other foods that can become laced with PBCs, especially when heated in plastic containers in a microwave oven.

Even with a strict vegan diet, the ubiquity of pesticides and other petrochemicals, which we are also inhaling from the air makes it impossible to avoid xenoestrogens completely.

Dr. Grossman recommends a diet rich in cruciferous vegetables from the Brassica family, such as cabbage, Brussels sprouts, kale, collard greens, mustard greens, cauliflower, water cress, arugala, bok choy and broccoli, among others. These contain compounds which have been found to inhibit the development of cancer and its recurrence.

The best results from eating cruciferous vegetables require consuming 2 pounds (1 kilo) per day, which would be a challenge for anyone, so he also recommends the use of supplements containing the two key natural compounds found in this family of vegetables, DIM (Diindolylmethane) and Indole-3-carbinol, which alter the toxic forms of estrogen into their less toxic and beneficial forms.

Thanks to Standard Process Labs, we have an excellent product called “Cruciferous Complete” made up of kale (whole plant) powder and Brussels sprouts (whole plant) powder, both of which are loaded with these cancer-preventing compounds. Send me an email for more information about this product and how to purchase it.

Articles are being circulated on Facebook and the internet that promote the theory that cancer is a fungus whose cells die in an alkaline environment. Tumors shrink and pathogens are burned up with the intervention of the “treatment” being touted.

This process can be initiated by swiftly alkalizing the body and bloodstream with baking soda mixed with maple syrup to carry the soda into the cancer cells, delivering more oxygen than the cells can handle.

Oxygen, a free radical itself, literally destroys cancer cells and other free radicals by supplying them with electrons and thereby neutralizing them and sending a flow of electrical energy through them. This rush of electrical energy simply burns them up — and without doing harm to the healthy cells of the body, as chemo and radiation therapy do. In fact, where this harmless cancer treatment is included by patients who also use conventional therapies, lower dosages of chemo and radiation can be used.

Anyway, that’s the gist of the story, into which I will attempt to offer some critical thinking in this post. First, let’s review the story, and the “treatment” along with some of the controversy surrounding it.

This medical news was published in 2010 by Dr. Mark Sircus.

Dr. Mark Sircus

Dr. Mark Sircus, Ac., OMD, DM (P) (acupuncturist, doctor of oriental and pastoral medicine) is a prolific writer and author of some astounding medical and health-related books. Dr. Sircus’s methods are based on medical science and long years of clinical experience, not only his own but experiences of doctors from around the world who have been practicing brilliant medicine. [View his nine-minute video here.]

When it comes to cancer, Dr. Sircus pays attention to the terrain, to the surrounding cells and the surrounding extracellular matrix, which interacts and shapes cancer cell growth. Cancer cells cannot turn into a lethal tumor without the cooperation of other cells nearby. It is not just the friendly healthier cells but also the interstitial environment (pH, oxygen and CO2 levels) that plays a role in determining what will happen to a person when they have cancer.

Needless to say, the American Cancer Society frowns upon this theory and treatment, which is popular, if notoriously, in foreign countries, such as Italy.

THE CONTROVERSIAL DR. SIMONCINI

Dr. Tullio Simoncini

Oncologist Dr. Tullio Simoncini in Rome, Italy, has been somewhat successfully treating cancer patients with a simple cure for most cancer tumors using a simple remedy (for which he charges thousands of dollars) that swiftly changes the pH environment around cancer cells, dramatically increasing the oxygen in the cell and literally disintegrating it. He uses an IV drip — which got him in a lot of trouble, including conviction for manslaughter (several of his patients died of their cancers and/or complications from the infusion), loss of his license, and imprisonment — but the remedy is simple and easy to concoct and administer at home and reportedly works with all tumors in the body — with the exception of brain and bone tumors.

“There is not a tumor on God’s green earth that cannot be licked with a little baking soda and maple syrup.” That is the astonishing claim of controversial folk healer Jim Kelmun who says that this simple home remedy can stop and reverse the deadly growth of cancers. His loyal patients swear by the man they fondly call Dr. Jim and say he is a miracle worker. “Dr. Jim cured me of lung cancer,” said farmer Ian Roadhouse. “Those other doctors told me that I was a goner and had less then six months to live. But the doc put me on his mixture and in a couple of months the cancer was gone. It did not even show up on the x-rays.”

Dr. Jim discovered this treatment accidentally somewhere in the middle of the last century when he was treating a family plagued by breast cancer. There were five sisters in the family and four of them had died of breast cancer. He asked the remaining sister if there was anything different in her diet and she told him that she was partial to sipping maple syrup and baking soda. Since then, reported by a newspaper in Ashville, North Carolina, Dr. Jim dispensed this remedy to over 200 people diagnosed with terminal cancer and amazingly he claims of that number 185 lived at least 15 more years and nearly half enjoyed a complete remission of their disease. When combined with other safe and effective treatments like transdermal magnesium therapy, iodine, vitamin C, probiotics and other items like plenty of good sun exposure, pure water and clay treatments we should expect even higher remission rates.

The science is rather simple chemistry. Here’s how it works [taken from Dr. Sirius’ International Medical Veritas Association (IMVA) website:

All cancer sufferers and in fact every chronic disease patient should hold clearly in mind that pH is the regulatory authority that controls most cellular processes. The pH balance of the human bloodstream is recognized by medical physiology texts as one of the most important biochemical balances in all of human body chemistry. pH is the acronym for “Potential Hydrogen”. In definition, it is the degree of concentration of hydrogen ions in a substance or solution. It is measured on a logarithmic scale from 0 to 14. Higher numbers mean a substance is more alkaline in nature and there is a greater potential for absorbing more hydrogen ions. Lower numbers indicate more acidity with less potential for absorbing hydrogen ions.

Our body pH is very important because pH controls the speed of our body’s biochemical reactions. It does this by controlling the speed of enzyme activity as well as the speed that electricity moves through our body; the higher (more alkaline) the pH of a substance or solution, the more electrical resistance that substance or solution holds. Therefore, electricity travels slower with higher pH. If we say something has an acid pH, we are saying it is hot and fast. Alkaline pH on the other hand, bio-chemically speaking, is slow and cool.

THE TREATMENT

This treatment is a combination of pure, 100% maple syrup and baking soda and was first reported on the Cancer Tutor site. When mixed and heated together, the maple syrup and baking soda bind together. The maple syrup targets cancer cells (which consume 15 times more glucose than normal cells) and the baking soda, which is dragged into the cancer cell by the maple syrup, being very alkaline forces a rapid shift in pH killing the cell. The actual formula is to mix one part baking soda with three parts (pure, 100%) maple syrup in a small saucepan. Stir briskly and heat the mixture for 5 minutes. Take 1 teaspoon daily, is what is suggested by Cancer Tutor but one could probably do this several times a day.

“Sodium bicarbonate therapy is harmless, fast and effective because it is extremely diffusible. A therapy with bicarbonate for cancer should be set up with strong dosage, continuously, and with pauseless cycles in a destruction work which should proceed from the beginning to the end without interruption for at least 7-8 days. In general a mass of 2-3-4 centimeters will begin to consistently regress from the third to the fourth day, and collapses from the fourth to the fifth,” says Dr Simoncini. . . .

. . . Sodium bicarbonate is safe, extremely inexpensive and unstoppably effective when it comes to cancer tissues. It’s an irresistible chemical, cyanide to cancer cells for it hits the cancer cells with a shock wave of alkalinity, which allows much more oxygen into the cancer cells than they can tolerate. Cancer cells cannot survive in the presence of high levels of oxygen. Studies have already shown how manipulation of tumor pH with sodium bicarbonate enhances some forms of chemotherapy.

VIRUS AND BACTERIA REMEDY AS WELL

There are many ways to use sodium bicarbonate and it is a universal drug like iodine and magnesium chloride. Raising pH increases the immune system’s ability to kill bacteria, concludes a study conducted at The Royal Free Hospital and School of Medicine in London. Viruses and bacteria that cause bronchitis and colds thrive in an acidic environment. To fight a respiratory infection and dampen symptoms such as a runny nose and sore throat, taking an alkalizing mixture of sodium bicarbonate and potassium bicarbonate will certainly help.

APPLE CIDER VINEGAR REMEDY

The apple cider vinegar 1/4 teaspoon and 1/4 teaspoon baking soda taken 2 times or more a day is another treatment as is lemon and baking soda, or lime and baking soda formulas. Perhaps honey could be substituted for maple syrup for those who live in parts of the world where maple syrup is not available but to my knowledge no one has experimented with this.

Let me be clear: I am NOT recommending this treatment for cancer to anyone on this blog. You are completely on your own. It is a fact that diseases such as cancer and viral or bacterial infections thrive in an acid environment. However, changing the body’s pH so drastically and swiftly by ingesting therapeutic doses of baking soda can have harmful side effects, as the articles I’ve sourced for this blog report and detail.

For example, yeast thrives in an alkaline environment. It is generally present in the colon, which needs to maintain a lower pH, slightly on the acid side. Yeast overgrowth happens when the pH of the colon becomes too alkaline. So you don’t want to mess with the pH of the colon with large and frequent doses of baking soda.

There’s also the digestion factor where meats and grains are concerned. They need undiluted hydrochloric acid to break down the protein. Stomach digestive acid is activated in an acidic environment by the salivary enzyme pepsin, mixed with your food as you chew it thoroughly. If you change the pH of the stomach to a more alkaline environment with baking soda (or with Tums and Rolaids), your stomach is not going to be able to digest that hamburger and french fries. The undigested meat, bun and french fries will start fermenting, causing gas and heart burn, and will putrefy and rot later on in the gut. This condition can lead to all sorts of disorders, including IBS, Crohn’s disease and even cancer.

THE BEST PREVENTION

The best way to prevent and perhaps kill cancer cells, is to keep alkalizing your body chemistry with alkaline-rich vegetables (Here’s a chart to guide you). A quick way to alkalize is with barley green. There are supplements available for this purpose. Standard Process has SP GREENFOOD, which is a blend of alkalizing barley green and anti-cancer cruciferous vegetables, and Morter Health Systems has ALKA-GREEN, which is a barley green tablet. If you’re eating a lot of acid-ash foods (meat, dairy and grains), this is a great way to add alkaline to balance out the acid. Let us not forget the alkalizing benefits of minerals, such as calcium and magnesium. ORGANICALLY BOUND MINERALS by Standard Process is what I take daily and prescribe to my clients.

It is obvious that this treatment is intended to help those with cancer to do something themselves at home to help cure their disease. I support and applaud such efforts made by anyone who takes an active role in their healthcare. As I said above, I am not recommending it to my blog readers nor promoting it as a “cancer cure.” I do, however, caution my readers not to employ this procedure without medical or professional guidance. (I state this disclaimer as a protective measure and as a requirement by the FDA.)

I hope this post has helped you in your own critical thinking on this topic. I love hearing from my readers, so please feel free to comment on this post or send me your comments by email at tpal70@gmail.com. Until my next post,

IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER: The information in this blog post is for educational purposes only. Products or remedies mentioned in this blog post are not intended to diagnose or treat or cure any disease nor to replace orthodox medical care.

Being a holistic physician, I notice how sick people often identify with their disease. They will say “I am an alcoholic” or “I am a diabetic” or “I am a drug addict” or “I am depressed.” Some even say they are a chocoholic. But they are none of these things. They are human beings . . . with some limitations, yes, but they are human beings.

I no longer wonder because I know first hand how a change in perception of oneself might turn a person around and lead him or her to a permanent “cure” of one’s disease. One could simply say, for example, “I am a human being and I have a limitation of addiction to alcohol, or drugs, or chocolate. Or “I have a limitation in processing sugar” in a case of diabetes. I recall the day I quit smoking many years ago. While choosing my seat on an airplane, I had to choose between “smoker” and “non-smoker” sections. The way the question was put was “Are you a smoker or a non-smoker. I chose to be a “non-smoker” and it felt so good changing my “identity” at that level of my addiction to tobacco.

YOU CAN CHANGE YOUR CONSCIOUSNESS

So, let’s look at how we perceive ourselves. We can perceive ourselves as one acting or one being acted upon, depending on our state of consciousness and self-awareness. Since consciousness is where everything first takes place in our lives, even before external events happen, what I perceive myself to be in consciousness, who I imagine myself to be, will determine how I behave in any given external event or circumstance. Some say that external events are not real but are creations of our consciousness. I believe that external events are real in that they are reflections of our reality, created by us through our capacity of consciousness – one of its many aspects and levels of function being imagination.

Imagination is at the heart of creation. Our whole world arises out of our imagination. We act upon our worlds from out of our imagination, literally where images of things and events we want to create are formed. First there is an image in consciousness, or what is sometimes called “the heaven,” and then a form appears in the earth from out of the mist of imagination. The heaven and the earth are one, and in consciousness is where these two come together and interact, the earth being shaped by the image in the heaven. Imagination, and ultimately consciousness, can be conditioned by perception, and vice versa. Perception can be “jaded” by imagination.

For example, I can imagine horrible things are going on, especially when there’s chronic pain in my body or a state of depression in my mind. The big bad “C” is feared by most and held suspect, as is “mental illness,” and if I hold that image of cancer or of mental illness in my consciousness, I am setting myself up for creating that condition in my body-mind out of fear. Fear has been defined as faith in evil, belief that the worst is going to happen. So, be careful what you fear as it may well come upon you. Some people have an “evil eye.” They are always looking for what’s wrong, and they’ll usually find it . . . or perhaps create it as “wrong” in their consciousness.

Or, I can imagine wonderful things are going on through a bright and cheerful outlook, and they seemingly appear from out of nowhere. Some people have a natural knack for always seeing things “on the bright side,” as we say. It all depends on one’s state of consciousness which conditions perception. In this sense, we do create our world out of our consciousness, and in this sense alone it isn’t real but just the way we’re looking at it. Perhaps accurate is the better word to use. We rarely see things as they actually are. Makes one ask, “What’s real anyway?”

YOU CAN CHANGE YOUR IDENTITY

We live and function out of an identity, an ego, which is either true or false, authentic or fabricated. We are either a creator, our authentic Self, or a creature, our fabricated self. We perceive ourselves as acting or as being acted upon, depending on whom we perceive ourselves to be, creators or creatures.

I believe that all disease, physical, mental and emotional, is a symptom of an identity crisis disrupting the status quo so that a process of transformation can take place. I’ve heard prominent health authors express the same conviction. (These words are mine.)

In truth, we are creators, and we create our own reality out of our imagination and consciousness. You could say that consciousness is where Reality meets and interacts with form in the factual world. As said earlier, heaven and earth are one in our consciousness . . . or, they are separate, if we want to see them that way. It depends, again, on our state of consciousness. And, let’s be honest, all of us have been conditioned to see things as separate entities by the beliefs implanted in our subconscious minds during our so-called “education,” which was actually programming. In this sense, we live in an illusory world where things appear to be separate. In the real world, all things are connected and whole.

Young children naturally see things as whole and connected. They see an apple as a delicious fruit before they are taught to spell the word with separate letters, a-p-p-l-e, or dissect it into Vitamins A, B, C, and over a hundred other nutrients vital to our health. They don’t even have a concept of God, the devil, or good and evil. In their fluid state of freedom they are too busy knowing God. To them the world is one beautiful and wonderful place to be and in which to live and play. To them it is all good and whole.

THERE’S ONLY ONE ADDICTION

We are taught to separate things into isolated parts, as though such dissection would lead to understanding. To use a Biblical reference, we are taught to “eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil,” to judge what is good and condemn what is “evil.” Mental judgement is an addiction that is hard for anyone to break who is identified as a creature. It is the only addiction. All other outbreaks of addiction stem from this one addiction to judgement of good and evil. The irony of this is that what we judge to be “good” often turns out to be “bad” for us.

If we see ourselves as creatures, we are always being acted upon by external forces. If it’s not the economy, it’s the weather. If not the Republicans then it’s the Democrats. If it’s not a virus or a flu bug, it’s an ulcer or cancer. Something’s always trying to “do us in.” Our genes are wrongly blamed for many of our diseases and even our behavior, when all they do is determine the shape of our bodies and the color of our eyes and hair. All else is learned behavior — our habits and lifestyles, what we eat and drink, whether we use tobacco and alcohol, how to medicate our bodies and minds when they feel sick and tired — all these things we inherit, not in our genes but through our perception that shapes our consciousness of who we are and how life is lived.

And you know what? We are all disillusioned . . . if we are lucky. And if we’re not lucky, we believe the illusion and live out our lives in quiet desperation drugged by the opiates of mind-altering chemicals . . . and/or religion, in the hopes of having a better life in heaven. But we don’t enter the kingdom of heaven as creatures, only as creators. Heaven is within us and all around us. We destroy it or create it in our consciousness, and, depending on which we do, we either perceive it or we don’t. The fact that we don’t perceive heaven “at hand” doesn’t mean that it isn’t present. The instruction was to “repent” — literally turn around and see it, change your perception in other words so that you can see that you are truly in heaven and that heaven is within you . . . a place where “firm control and awful power eternally abide” to call on a line from one of my favorite poems, Thus It Is by Martin Cecil.

LIVING OUT OF YOUR REAL IDENTITY

On the other hand, when we see ourselves as creators, we are always leading forth with positive and creative force — and that need not be something loud and contrived or imposing. It can be as simply and easy as being thankful and appreciative. These are positive forces. If the economy is poor, rather than being stressed out we simply adjust our spending so we can continue being creative, being thankful for what means we have and creative in finding ways to live within them. If a virus or flu bug has gotten past our immune system, rather than thinking the worst we simply appreciate our immune system, perhaps support it with Echinacea and Vitamins A and C, and/or take measures to cleanse the blood and lymphatic system with garlic, herbs and lots of fluids . . .and movement. Yes, movement helps circulate the lymph and blood that carry out the toxins. Unless a dangerous fever comes on, it’s best to keep moving during a cold or flu. If you feel you have to see a doctor, then go to one you can easily believe in. Your belief alone will see you through the crisis.

If our minds become confused trying to understand the complexities of life in this world, we turn to God within and pray for understanding, and we focus on what’s right at hand that we do understand. If our hearts are broken and saddened by disappointment, we turn to love and find wisdom in releasing what’s hurtful through forgiveness rather than thrashing out in anger to hurt the one(s) who hurt us, or fall victim to self-pity. If we fall, we get up and walk again, because we are creators acting and never victims being acted upon.

ALL THINGS HAVE DESIGN AND SERVE ONE PURPOSE

I am trying my best to keep this as simple as possible, because the truth is really simple and easy. There is design and purpose to everything under the sun, and everything under the sun serves one purpose: the creation of life and beauty on earth. Outside this design and purpose things have no meaning and value, and life gets complicated, painful and hard.

Take our most personal possessions, our human capacities. They serve only two purposes (which are actually one), and that is our incarnation as spirit beings and our creative activities in the material world with others. That’s it. Any activities outside of this have no meaning or value to these capacities, and when these capacities of body-mind and heart are not serving their purpose, what they are designed to do, they become bored and confused, at best. At worse, they become incoherent and eventually malfunction, get sick and start falling apart. That’s what physical, mental and emotional illness is: a confused, incoherent falling apart of our capacities due to abuse, our failure to use them according to their design and for the purpose they were created to serve. It’s that simple.

The cure is just as simple as restoring them to their intended purpose and nourishing them with love and appreciation, wholesome food and fresh water, along with plenty of rest and exercise. Health is not complicated. It’s simple because it is the truth of life, and the truth makes us free. That’s why we’re always looking for it. We want to be free from disease and from the drugging of our capacities. Well, here it is, right at hand! Embrace it and relinquish any and all dependence on drugs of every kind, and that includes tobacco and alcohol. We can do it because we have the power as creators to re-create ourselves and our worlds in our consciousness. See yourself and your world as whole and it will be so for you.

NOURISHING THE SPIRIT

In that remarkable movie “Awakenings,” Dr. Malcolm Sayer (played by Robin Williams) — after his futile attempt to permanently awaken Leonard Lowe (played in a stunning performance by Robert Di Nero), and a number of other patients who were damaged in their childhood years by encephalitis, with an experimental mega-dosing of Dopamine — concludes his compassionate and hopeful project, turned failure by an onslaught of adverse reactions to the drug, with these insightful words:

The Human spirit is more powerful than any drug — and that’s what we need to nourish . . . with kindness, compassion, friendship — things as simple as that.

I felt his pain of frustration, limited as he was by orthodox medicine in finding a cure for his client’s mental illness, with the only thing between his determination to find a cure and his patient was a drug that offered only promise with adverse side-effects — not at all unlike modern medical doctors today. I felt his ache of heart as Leonard, speaking through his facial tic and spastic limbs, cried out to him “Don’t give up on me!” That brought me to tears, because I know first hand what compassion mixed with frustration can do to a doctor’s heart.

Thankfully, we have natural solutions to modern day ills today — not that modern medicine has embraced them. The business of masking symptoms and managing diseases is too profitable. Breaking the addiction to drugs is the largest hurdle patients have to face when their medical doctor won’t cooperate with them, at best, or expresses anger at them for not wanting to take their medicine, at worse, even threatening them with discharge for non-compliance. Our healthcare system is broke at this level alone. Forget the economical issues. We doctors can turn this system around simply by putting the patient first . . . and patients can break the cycle by embracing Mother Nature’s cornucopia of natural solutions back to health. _____________________________________________________________

In my next blog post we will take each of our capacities and see them in a new light, individually and as a functional whole. Thank you for joining me in this vital consideration. Until we’re together again, I pray good health and happiness for you.

Dr. Anthony Palombo

email: tpal70@gmail.com

Visit my other blog Healing Tonesfor a deeper understanding of your body temple as an energetic symphony of sound and light.

My wife, who is a master’s level professional counselor, just brought to my attention an interview in the current issue of The SUN magazine by Arnie Cooper of Christopher Lane, “Side Effects May Include – On What’s Wrong With Modern Psychiatry.” In the interview, Lane, an English professor specializing in Victorian literature and intellectual history, exposes the hard facts about how mental “diseases” are reportedly multiplying. Apparently new disorders are being added to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) every year.

In his tenacious endeavor to find answers as to why so many of his own students were on anti-anxiety and anti-depressant drugs, and as to the emergence in 1980 of dozens of new mental disorders in the third edition of the DSM — such “curious-sounding” diagnoses as “‘social phobia'” and “‘avoidance personality disorder'” — and especially as to “how and why those new disorders had been approved for inclusion [in the DSM] and whether they were really bona fide illnesses,” Lane found, to his dismay but not surprise, an active involvement of Pharmacia & Upjohn, the drug company who makes the anti-anxiety drug Xanax,“especially in the promotion of ‘panic disorder.'” He also found evidence of sloppy research and “dismissal of nonmedical approaches to psychiatric problems, and a degree of inventiveness with terms and symptoms that struck him as playing fast and loose with the facts.”

When asked “Are we getting sicker, or is something else at play?” Lane’s answer reminded me of the phenomenal growth in size of the Physicians Desk Reference (PDR) over the last 50 years I’ve been in practice. I used to be able to hold the book in one hand and turn the pages with the other. Now, I have to place it on a table or desk to even handle it. It grew in thickness from about two inches to six, and much of that growth is due to the increase in new drugs that treat the side effects of drugs, what are called “iatrogenic (doctor-caused) diseases.” Are we getting sicker or have we become a drug-addicted and drug-damaged society? Lane’s answer is worth excepting from the interview:

The way psychiatrists define mental illness has itself changed radically. The first two editions of the DSM focused on observable traits and behaviors in patients, which were often described as “reactions” to particular incidents or stressors. When the third edition came out in 1980, it defined virtually everything as a “disorder,” which connotes an innate, lifelong malfunctioning of the brain rather than a moment of psychological distress that might be due to a brief change in circumstance. This new method of defining mental disease has completely transformed the way mental-health professionals and the general public think about it.

When asked again if it is possible that we are in fact getting sicker, he responded with alarming words about how the industry is viewing our children:

I think it’s difficult to gauge that accurately. If you follow the APA’s line [American Psychiatric Association], then most definitely we’re seeing epidemic rates of social anxiety disorder and bipolar disorder, with the latter expanding by an eye-popping 4,000 percent. But how did that massive increase come about? It’s due almost entirely to the fact that the DSM-IV formalized bipolar as a mental disorder among children. Before that, bipolar disorder was understood to be exclusively an adult phenomenon. Psychiatrists like to revise everything backward, to rewrite the past in terms of their current terminology. Doing so makes their new terminology seem natural, even inevitable. There are more than a hundred more mental disorders in the DSM today than we had in 1968, including incredible new ones such as “sibling-relational problem” and even “partner-relational problem.” But I’m not convinced that the introduction of new illnesses means that more people are actually sicker.

Lane then goes on to say this about the quality of the APA’s trials in determining the criteria for mental illness:

I have extensively researched the APA archives and can attest that their judgments were often flimsy and their rationale for including new disorders questionable, based as they were on anecdotal evidence, ambiguous clinical research, and highly inconclusive trials. One of the consultants for the DSM-III, Theodore Millon, admitted to The New Yorker in 2005 that there was little systemic research; much of it, he said, was inconsistent and hodgepodge. He was an active participant on the DSM committee.

Lane’s research seeded and spurred the authoring of his book in 2007, Shyness: How Normal Behavior Became a Sickness, in which he shares his observations of the evolution of the understanding of mental disorders which gradually began to include normal reactions to one’s environment and upbringing. Such normal behavior began to be seen as “innate conditions of brain chemistry, resulting from problematic levels of neurotransmitters, especially serotonin.” Under the expanded guidelines of the DSM, anyone who is shy stands the risk of being diagnosed as mentally ill.

GOOD NEWS TO THE DRUG INDUSTRY

“The new disorders were obviously music to the ears of drug companies,” he says, “insofar as they massively increased the market for their products, which the media greeted with incredible enthusiasm.” Of course the media would be enthused. In 2000 alone GlaxoSmithKline spent $92 million on direct-to-consumer advertising on a single drug, Paxil, a drug that has so many side effects and such dubious results that the company seriously considered shelving it only to turn around and make a blockbuster out of it with an annual revenue surpassing $1 billion. As Lane points out, they have to create and sell the disease to the public before they sell the drug. The expectation is that we will self-diagnose and hurry to our local pharmacy to buy their new product.

Are we going to continue allowing the drug industry to invent diseases and determine what behaviors and symptoms are to be included in the DSM as illnesses based on what new drugs they’ve developed that need a disease to treat and a shelf to fill in the drugstore?

“EMOTIONAL BLUNTING” A SIDE EFFECT

One of the side effects of all this massive consumption of antidepressants and antipsychotic drugs is described as “emotional blunting,” a widely noted and studied phenomenon where people on these drugs may show little if any strong emotion in the face of catastrophes and environmental crises, such as the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, or sensitive enough moral and ethical judgement that allowed space for risky bank practices and real estate speculation. Lane decries the lack of resistance on the part of Americans to Bush’s $4 trillion illegal and ill justified Iraq war, an economic setback that conservatives among us appear to have conveniently forgotten as they blame our present economic crisis on our Democratic President. Are we as a nation over-drugged to the point of emotional numbness where we can’t think clearly or feel compassion and consideration anymore?

IS THERE A RISK TO PUBLIC HEALTH? TO OUR CHILDREN?

Traces of Lithium are showing up in municipal drinking water, not to mention the homeopathic coding of our drinking water by the mere presence of these traces of antidepressants, antibiotics and other prescription drugs in the water. Mass medication is taking place without public awareness, much less outcry. There’s no public outcry either against the forced drugging of our children with amphetamines (Adderall and Ritalin – read my blog on this) instead of giving them a healthier alternative to sugar and caffeine laden soft drinks and refined carbohydrate snacks, although there is finally some movement in that direction by our school system.

Lane says that undergraduates are taking “neuroenhancers” . . . in large numbers . . . apparently not recognizing the difference between caffeine and what is essentially refined amphetamines. To the extent that real learning and deep efforts in creativity are being replaced by adjustments in brain chemistry — potentially involving tens of thousands of students across the country — I would consider that a risk to public health, to say nothing of a phenomenon that should raise concerns about academic integrity and cheating

A CHANGE IN PERCEPTION AND CONSCIOUSNESS NEEDED

I’ve cited this interview as an example in the healthcare industry of how the field of professional medical providers will gladly accommodate our demand for drugs to alleviate our pain, be it physical pain or mental anxiety and depression. That demand arises largely out of the way we perceive ourselves, our pain and mental anxiety, and the state of consciousness in which we form our perceptions, most of which are based on beliefs we’ve held since childhood.

An example that readily comes to mind is the automatic assumption, when pain arises, that something is wrong and a doctor is needed to tell us what’s wrong and give us something for the pain, preferable find and correct the cause of the pain so that we won’t need the pain killer — which is what I do as a holistic physician and people respond favorably to that kind of rationale.

NOTHING IS WRONG! EVERYTHING MATTERS!

My approach to pain and illness is that nothing is wrong but the symptoms do matter. The symptoms of pain and anxiety are important messages from the body that a change is needed in the way I’m living life. They matter, in other words, and we are not wise in our rush to turn off the symptoms with drugs, or high potency vitamins and herbs, for that matter, and thereby miss the message. For unless the message is properly perceived and duly heeded, the symptoms will return, only next time louder and more attention grabbing, for which the doctor will prescribe yet stronger medicine and/or more invasive procedures. So, while dealing with the pain for relief, let’s discover what the pain alarm is about so we can address the underlying cause.

A typical example of what I’m saying occurs in my practice on a regular basis. The patient presents with a chronic back pain for which various doctors, including chiropractors, were consulted and treatments rendered with no lasting results. Being a chiropractor, I naturally look for a structural problem, such as a hip or spinal vertebra out of alignment irritating a nerve root. But that’s already been done, so I listen more deeply and broaden my perception while tracing the symptoms back to uncover a deeper and perhaps more obscure and subtle cause. Invariably, upon muscle testing and a comprehensive investigation into the patient’s case history and life style habits, a bladder infection more often than not reveals itself. So we treat the bladder infection for a period of time with herbs and nutritional protocols and the chronic back pain goes away for good.

Another example is the chronic neck ache, the crick in the neck that just won’t go away, even with chiropractic adjustments. So we listen and look deeper for less obvious causes and invariably a lymphatic congestion reveals itself as the cause, resulting in lymph node swelling and tenderness in the neck So, we treat the lymphatics with herbs and homeopathic solutions and the crick in the neck, as well as the recurring or lingering headache, clear up. An adjustment wasn’t needed after all . . . nor muscle relaxers.

Often a stiff neck is simply a physiological response to emotional stress, the body asking for deeper issues to be dealt with and resolved. Here is where true counseling is needed. I offer BioEnergetic Synchronization Technique (BEST) as a non-invasive treatment for emotional and mental stress issues. Basically it’s a way of desensitizing emotional “buttons” that are being pushed by triggers in one’s environment and social setting.

We will continue with this theme next blog post with a consideration of some alternative approaches to depression and mental illness, as well as a look at how we can go about changing our perception and consciousness around health issues in general. Until then, consider a drug-free life style.

I never dreamed I’d see the day when a drug company would actually come out and expose the sheer ignorance and stupidity of medical science and its so-called “doctors” the way one has recently. Yes, I said “so-called doctors” because if gastrointerologists actually believe what the company that manufactures Nexium is “teaching” (the real meaning of the word doctor) the public about how to handle and avoid “acid-indigestion,” then they have stopped being doctors and have become drug technicians.

Believe it or not, however, there it was on my television screen a few days ago, before God and everyone, blatantly proclaiming their ignorance, all the while taking us for fools. The “Purple Pill” ad shouted out: “BLOCK THE ACID . . . FROM THE START!” or something to that effect. I couldn’t believe my eyes and ears. Was I actually hearing correctly. Did he say “Block the acid” to avoid “acid-indigestion?!” OMG! It’s come to that! I wonder how many people saw through the fallacy of that ad, and how many of those expensive purple capsules this ad sells on a daily basis. And we wonder why we have so much colon cancer! (I’ll explain.) I have a close relative who actually raves about the wonders of this drug that “shuts off acid pumps” in the stomach. Now the makers of Prilosec are touting the same message.

NOW, LET’S PUT ON OUR THINKING CAPS

How does the stomach digest meat, dairy, eggs, nuts, and grains? Right! With digestive acid — betaine hydrochloride to be exact. Where does this acid come from? Right again! The stomach — the parietal cells lining the stomach wall, to be exact. What causes so-called “acid indigestion?” If you answered “too much acid,” as the ad leads one to believe, you’d be wrong! It’s not too much stomach acid. It’s not enough stomach acid. That’s right. So-called “acid indigestion” is actually “lack-of-acid indigestion.”

The essential condition of indigestion is a failure of the food to digest due to a lack of digestive juices. Now, what happens when the food stops digesting? It ferments. What does fermentation produce? GAS — hot, acidic gas, the kind that makes you burp fire so hot that it burns the stomach and the cardiac valve, making them so limp that the valve can’t close tightly. The result? You guessed it! GERD — Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease.

Of course, as medicine will do, they’ve made a “disease” out of this condition so they can treat it with a drug. That’s what they do. They’re drug dealers. They deal in drugs. They don’t teach us, as doctors are supposed to do, how to eat properly so that the food digests as it is designed to do in a stomach that was made to withstand its own secretions of digestive juices – which, by the way, include hydrochloric acid. If fact, they tell you to go ahead and eat what and how you want because you can just block the production of digestive acids with the Purple Pill. Horror of horrors! It doesn’t get any more deplorable than that! It’s a slap to the face of the Creator Himself who made the stomach to produce acid . . . and it’s an insult to our common sense and intelligence.

THE CURE OF INDIGESTION IS . . . DIGESTION!

Now, let’s think this through. The cure for in-digestion is digestion. Isn’t that logical? If the food you ate stops digesting, you need to start up the digestive process again, get it going in the right direction so that the food doesn’t ferment . . . and, to the purpose of eating at all, so that your body can get the nutrients it needs to be healthy. And just how shall you accomplish that? Well, if the food you ate needs hydrochloric acid to digest it, you’re going to have to add more hydrochloric acid to the contents of your stomach. You obviously do not want to block the stomach from making its own betaine hydrochloride — nor neutralize the acid with antacids. Oh, Tums and Rolaids will buffer the acids of fermentation, but they also neutralize the hydrochloric acid needed to digest the meat. So, instead of antacids, you can take some betaine hydrochloride.

I use ZYPAN by Standard Process Labs ($13/90 tabs). It works every time. Actually, I take it with every meal simply because after 45 we make less betaine hydrochloride. And if you’re under stress, you make none at all. People who have chronic stress do not digest their food very well and are usually popping antacids after meals.

Watch this short video clip:

The body isn’t interested in nourishment when it’s geared up to fight or flee from a threat. As Dr. Bruce Lipton points out, we’re either in growth or protection and defense mode. We can’t be in both at the same time.

WHAT ARE SOME CAUSES OF INDIGESTION?

Eating “fast food” on the run and under the duress of a deadline you have to meet or a tight schedule. Being totally present with your meals, savoring the taste and enjoying the brief break away from your job or routine go a long way toward healthy digestion.

Combining foods that don’t digest well together. A typical example is meat and potatoes, a protein and a starch. They require opposite chemistry to digest – meats need acid and starches need alkaline digestive juices. Acids and alkalines neutralize one another. The result is that neither digest but sit in the stomach and ferment causing “acid indigestion” and “heart burn.” (It’s not the heart that actually burns but the area of the stomach and esophagus that’s close to the heart.) The rule of thumb for compatible food combining is eat meats with vegetables and fruit with starches. Meats and sweets don’t digest well together.

Drinking cokes and other sweet beverages with meals. Again, the chemistry doesn’t mix. Drink water with a squeeze of lemon.

Ulcers. The body is wise. It won’t secrete hydrochloric acid into the stomach when it’s ulcerated. That’s why a bland diet is required. So, you don’t want to take ZYPAN if you have ulcers. First, heal up the ulcer. That can be done in three days with chlorophyll and okra pepsin. CHLOROPHYLL COMPLEX PERLES and GASTREX by Standard Process Labs (SPL) are what I use with my clients. Drop me an email and I’ll send you a bottle of each, which is all you’ll need . . . provided you start eating properly. If you have a duodenal ulcer, you likely have gallbladder trouble, which requires attention and a different nutritional protocol. If you have GERD or a hiatal hernia, you’ll need to supplement with manganese to tone up the valve and herniated tissues. I use LIGAPLEX II (SPL) (150 caps/$25), a wholefood formula with high concentrations of food-based manganese and other synergistic factors for proper utilization in toning up weak ligaments. Write me for guidance and help with these conditions. They can all be corrected with nutrition.

Eating too fast. Chewing allows activating enzymes of pepsin and ptyalin to mix in with the food. Without these enzymes the digestive juices cannot be activated. Chew your food well before swallowing it . . . and don’t wash it down with coke or sweet beverages. Water with a little ice and lemon juice is the only fluid one needs to clear out the mouth and esophagus.

Notes:

Pepsin is the powerful enzyme in gastric juice that activates hydrochloric acid to digest proteins such as those in meat, eggs, grains and seeds, or dairy products.

Ptyalin is a form of amylase in the saliva of humans and some animals that catalyzes the hydrolysis of starch into maltose and dextrin.

COLON CANCER ALERT

When undigested meat gets into the bowels where nutrients and water are taken up into the blood stream, it gets putrid and rots, creating conditions in which cancer can develop. When undigested fats get into the lower bowels they go rancid. Rotting meat and rancid fats irritate the lining of the intestines causing inflammation that leads to colitis (IBS), diverticulitis, leaky gut syndrome (the underlying cause of many food allergies), crohns disease, even cancer. Safeguard your digestive tract. Eat sensibly. Take digestive enzymes, especially if you’re not eating enough enzyme-rich raw vegetables.

For personal consultation, drop me an email to set up an appointment for a private telephone consultation. If you want the products mentioned in this article, simply drop me an email with your order. (Gastrex is $21 for 90 capsules and Chlorophyll Complex $23 for 60 perles.) I’ll give you a phone number to call with your credit card information. Postage will be added to all orders. Consultation fees are $45 for a half-hour and $65 for an hour. I also offer health coaching for a reasonable fee.

These next final posts will conclude my review of Dr. Gary L. Samuelson’s booklet The Science of Healing Revealed. I hope you are finding this series as fascinating as I am. Just to behold the intricacies of cellular life and understand what all goes into the healing process is awe inspiring. So, let’s begin our summary. But first a video clip of ABC’s report on the inner life of the cell. (Enjoy the full Inner Life of the Cell with wonderful music.)

NEW INSIGHTS-THE FRAMEWORK OF THE BODY’S NATURAL HEALING PROCESS

It is now time to take a step back, and look at the whole developing picture. We have already assembled many of the edge pieces in the puzzle and put together some of the more obvious patterns. We have also placed some more pieces in this framework and examined where they might go. What do we see when we step back and stare at everything we have assembled so far? Let us look at this picture in the light that the revealed mysteries of how the body naturally heals itself will unlock the secrets of sustained health for us and the following generations.

Much of the material in this chapter should sound familiar. It is just a capitulation of the major points in this booklet all written in a few pages so that the overall picture becomes clearer.

Detecting and Locating the Damage Zone — Redox Signaling

We see a pattern: in order for the body to heal itself it must be able to detect and locate the damaged cells. This task goes to the cellular-distress messengers. These messengers are sent out in response to a distress condition inside the cell. This distress condition occurs in the cell when something interferes with the normal cellular processes and disturbs the normal homeostatic chemical balance. This homeostatic chemical balance depends on the cell being able to constantly produce the thousands of critical molecules it needs and then being able to break them down at the same rate that they are being produced. When this balance is disturbed, certain molecules are either building up in the cell or becoming depleted. These excesses or deficiencies cause transcription-factor messengers to be sent into the DNA that change certain production rates that hopefully will ultimately compensate for the imbalance. Sometimes the response includes an increase in the amount of messengers sent out to signal this condition to other cells.

We start to see that wherever we look, the most reliable indicator of cellular distress is the build-up of oxidants in the cell, a condition called “oxidative stress” that occurs universally, even in different species and plants. The simple reactive oxidants and reductants produced in the cell are formed from the sea-water molecules that fill our cells. These small reactive molecules have the capacity of strongly affecting the redox potential of the sea-water environment where all of the complex processes of life take place. They are the redox messengers that send the redox signals governing much of the healing process. These reactive molecules are mainly produced in the mitochondria during the metabolism of sugars in the same process that produces the ATP that fuels the cell.

The antioxidants that the cell manufactures in order to break down these reactive molecules are very plentiful, ubiquitous all throughout the cell. The primary function of the antioxidants is to combine and neutralize equal quantities of reductants and oxidants and keep them from damaging the sensitive areas of the cell. It soon becomes clear that these small reactive molecules, a balanced mixture of oxidants and reductants, are critical to the proper function of the cell and even more essential to the damage control mechanisms that exist inside and outside the cell.

The Cell’s Response to Damage

Careful research has been done on the effects of oxidative stress resulting from cellular damage. The overabundance of oxidants (ROS) in the cellular environment has been shown to activate several genetic buttons on the cell’s master control panel. Some of the buttons pressed are shown below (in approximate order of activation):

If the oxidative stress condition is fixed by the repairs, then the DNA does not continue pressing more buttons; in fact it starts deactivating the buttons already pushed and returns to normal operation. It would be nice if we could press a few of these genetic buttons even if there is no oxidative stress; the “Repair DNA” and “Antioxidant Boost” button, for example, look pretty good. Perhaps we could take an “Antioxidant boost” pill that would do the job. We will discuss some of the possibilities later on.

In my next post we will review how the cell’s clean-up crew clear the way for the regeneration of new tissue and how oxidants (free radicals) play a central role as messengers.

But before you leave my blog, enjoy Dr. Bolinski’s video clip on the fascinating life of the cell and be awed by life’s intricate design and inspired to take better care of your body. I’ve added three more clips, two that summarize what Redox Signaling is and the third one to tell you about ASEA, a revolutionary product that I am getting behind because of its promising health and longevity benefits to my patients and clients. I’m taking it daily and it has made a huge difference in my energy level and the quality of my sleep. Just knowing that my cells are able to communicate with one another gives my mind rest from anxiety over ageing. There’s nothing like it on the market. Enjoy!

Like any community, the body cells depend on communication for their coordinated and harmonious function together. Communication depends on messengers, both inside the cell between the various actors and “micro machines” and outside the cell between the one-hundred-billion cells that compose our bodies. These next few posts will be about these messengers, most recently discovered among them being the Redox Signaling Messengers that turn out to be a most important players in the healing process. We will have a look at a very significant scientific breakthrough in the field of health and healing. Again, we will call upon Dr. Gary L. Samuelson to help us envision and understand the Healing Process as he presents it in his recently released booklet, The Science of Healing Revealed – New Insights into Redox Signaling.

How the Actors Work Together – The Signaling Messengers

So far in our abbreviated organization chart, a small sample of the cast of actors has been put together in order to provide a tiny taste of what they look like and what they do. There are thousands more (not listed, thankfully) that fill major roles inside and outside the cell; and the list is growing every day as new actors and roles are being discovered. The real story, however, lies not so much in what they look like or what their job description is, but in how they interact with each other and how they determine when and where to do their job.

For the most part, the cellular micro machinery is controlled by the various signaling messengers, as has already been mentioned, that go about carrying messages inside the individual cells (intracellular communication) as well as carrying messages between the cells (intercellular communication). As has also been mentioned, the very identity and behavior of the cell depends on the quantities and types of messengers being passed around in its surrounding environment.

The inner-cell (intracellular) messengers float around inside the seawater solution (cytosol) inside the cells. There are generally two types of intracellular messengers: (1) protein messengers that are coded by the DNA and built, delivered, passed around and modified by enzymes and cellular machinery and (2) a recently discovered network of messengers called “redox signaling and regulation” messengers made out of small, highly reactive molecules (ROS and RS) that are formed by the REDuction” and “OXidation'” (redox) of the very sea-water bath that surrounds all of this cellular machinery. These messengers modify the behavior of the machinery by changing the chemical potential in the salt-water environment where all of this machinery exists. Since these “redox” messengers are integrally involved in the healing process, they will be the topic of further investigation in this booklet.

The between-cell (intercellular) messengers are passed back and forth between cells. In order for them to work they must be able to leave one cell and “latch onto” or pass into surrounding cells. There are specific places built into the outer membranes of the cells, called “receptors” and “co-receptors,” where these messengers are allowed to “latch onto” the outside of the cell. Each different type of messenger molecule (called agonist) has its own custom-built latch (receptor) that allows it to pass a signal into the cell.

In many cases, the receptor itself, when latched, will cause intracellular messengers to be released to continue carrying the message into the cell. Most cells are stuck together with a scaffolding of adhesive molecules that allow messages to more easily be passed around among neighboring cells.

Redox messengers are able to alter the chemistry of the receptor latches that can either enhance or inhibit their ability to latch onto their messengers and pass messages into the cell. Sometimes the presence of these redox messengers themselves will spontaneously trigger a receptor to send messages into the cell.

In my next post we will explore further some amazing technology that has made it possible for us to enhance intra-and-inter-cellular communication. Before leaving my blog, take a few minutes to view this video clip on the Redox Signaling Molecule (5 min).

Besides giving a visual demonstration of how these signaling messengers work, this clip presents recent groundbreaking technology that is being used to stabilize these highly reactive molecules outside the body and then use them as bio-active, non-toxic agents inside the body to assist in the healing process.

The end result of this research is a formulated “water” called “ASEA” that is now available to the public through network marketing. I have become an associate distributor of this product because of the great promise it holds for my patients and clients at a foundational level in their healing and health maintenance, offering new solutions to longevity and quality of healthful living. It also gives people a tool they can use safely and obtain directly from the company without the requirement of becoming a network marketer themselves, although that is available as well as a home-based business with minimal investment. So, enjoy the clip! Until next week then, my best wishes . . .

To your health and healing,

Dr. Tony Palombo

For more information about ASEA and ordering instructions, simply click here.